When the mass terror and mass murder initiated by Iosif Stalin
came to an end in 1953, his successors continued to rely on fear
and repression. Several times in the three decades after 1953,
Soviet leaders did contemplate some liberalisation of the political
system but when it occurred, it did so slowly and fitfully, often
with sharp regressions. Mikhail Gorbachev, who became leader of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, began a new
round of liberalisation that would bring about the collapse of his
party and the state it ruled. This chapter reviews very briefly the
history of the collapse of Communist Party power and the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It
reviews the contest over a new national identity in the context
of demographic, cultural, political, constitutional and economic
considerations. This analysis pays close attention to the question
of regionalism and the prospects for separatism in Russia. The
final section of the chapter sketches very briefly some critical
issues for the future of Russia: what happens in the transition to
post-Yeltsin politics and what role the armed forces will play. This
first chapter thus provides the framework against which subsequent chapters document and analyse the national strategic and
military policies of Russia with particular reference to the Asia- Pacific region.

THE 1989 ELECTIONS: A DEMOCRATIC SURGE

In 1989, open and free elections came to Russia for the first time
in seven decades. It could be argued that 'Russian politics was
reborn'
1 but this is true more of popular participation in politics.
Elite politics had been refined to the highest levels in the Soviet

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